


Last Nite

by evieeden



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Break Up, Drunk Sex, F/M, Friendship, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Morning After, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, One Night Stands, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 12:36:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8980003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evieeden/pseuds/evieeden
Summary: Tony knew that as soon as Natasha woke up she was going to kill him.





	

Natasha woke up slowly, the warmth of the room and the hum of voices on a nearby TV set lulling her into a daze. She stretched her body out, hands hitting the wooden headboard before what felt like her whole body relaxed. A crisp sheet brushed over her bare lower back and she froze, suddenly wide awake.

It took a moment for it to all come to her, but now she was completely awake, the images from last night came back to her in a hurry.

“You’ve just remembered, haven’t you?” The familiar voice came from her left and Natasha turned her head to see its owner sprawled out in an armchair in his dressing gown, a news show flickering on a screen on the wall, with a tablet in his hand, trying hard not to look nervous. “That was my reaction when I woke up too. Not a bad reaction obviously, but just…” He paused. “Are you going to kill me?”

She smirked and sat up, dragging the sheet with her to delicately cover herself. It wasn’t really for her benefit, she wasn’t particularly worried about hiding her body, especially from someone who had already seen her naked, but her companion seemed to be having conniptions without her nudity being thrown in his face.

“Relax, Stark. You look like you’re about to have a heart attack.”

He frowned at her. “You didn’t answer my question: are you going to kill me?”

“You know contrary to my call sign, I don’t actually devour males after mating with them.” He didn’t look reassured. Natasha rolled her eyes. “If I was going to kill you, I would have done it while you were asleep.”

Tony inclined his head. “An excellent point.”

Giving up on modesty now Stark knew she wasn’t going to lash out, Natasha stood up and crossed the room to the bathroom. Stepping into the spacious shower – three showerheads, what else? – she smiled to herself as she heard Stark shuffling outside and then lean against the door.

“Are we going to talk about this?”

She was sure it made him uncomfortable, but she was rather enjoying turning the tables on him, given how often his women must have been in this same position.

“Talk about what?” She grabbed the shampoo off the side – some shiny, gold bottle with a designer label – and began to lather up her hair. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stark move further into the room and sit on the edge of the bath. Clearly he was no longer worried about her taking revenge on him for taking her to bed.

“Talk about last night… and… what happened…” his voice trailed off.

Natasha paused in rinsing her hair and turned to face Tony. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He snorted. “Fuck, no. I’m not really one for dissecting a night’s entertainment.” He waved a hand, almost back to his usual cocksure self. “Too much drama involved usually.”

She moved onto conditioning her hair. “Yeah, well, same.”

“Really?” His tone indicated his disbelief. “I mean, not that I don’t believe you, but women in the past… not that you’re like those other women…”

“I should hope not,” she interrupted drily.

He fell uncharacteristically silent and Natasha continued cleaning herself, ignoring him. She could almost feel the crisis of conscience he was having and since she didn’t think she could say anything to him to make him feel better in that moment, she would carry on as usual and he could decide how he wanted the rest of this conversation to play out while she got rid of the dried sweat that had clung to her skin.

She managed to get out of the shower and half-dry, a towel wrapped around her head, behind he spoke again.

“How did this happen?”

Natasha paused and took a moment to take in his expression. For once, he seemed unsettled and she felt a pang of sympathy for him wash over her, although that was what had got them into this situation in the first place.

Removing the towel from her hair and wrapping it around her body, she edged forward to sit sideways in his lap.

Tony swallowed hard.

Natasha wrapped an arm around his shoulders, getting comfortable and almost unconsciously one of his arms came to wrap around her back to steady her, while his other hand dropped to rest against her leg.

“Tony.”

He hid his face against her shoulder and she felt the prickle of his beard brush over her collarbone. A jolt of fondness ran through her.

“Tony, this happened because yesterday evening, we were both very very drunk.”

She didn’t usually let herself get intoxicated in that way, but she was surrounded by people she knew were watching her back, so she through caution, and her inhibitions, to the wind.

“And you were lonely.”

She wouldn’t mention Pepper; she wasn’t that cruel.

“And I was…” Natasha swallowed past the lump that appeared in her throat. He squeezed her waist in a rough version of comfort. She didn’t finish the sentence. “And we’re friends.”

He nodded against her shoulder. “We’re friends.”

“That’s why this happened.”

It was nothing but the truth. She respected him too much to try to lie to him, especially about something like this.

She couldn’t imagine it happening with anyone else either.

Bruce and Barnes there was too much… whatever. Clint and Steve were friends, her best friends if she was going to allow herself to be sentimental, so physical relationships with them were…not unattractive, but not something she would want from them. Thor was a serial monogamist if she ever had seen one. Rhodey and Maria were just… no.

She could maybe see herself being intimate with Sam and remaining friends afterwards; she thought the pair of them were well adjusted enough to manage it, but she didn’t have the same kind of bond with him that she did with Tony.

Tony, who despite the false aliases and secrets and missions and world-saving, had never quite let go of the bond they had created back when he had been dying and she had been Natalie Rushman, the only one he could reach out while the world kept turning around him.

She got it.

She still had that connection too.

It wasn’t that she was in love with him or anything, but she liked him. She liked him just as much now as she had when she worked with him despite her better judgement at the time.

She and him were friends. They slept together because they were friends and they understood each other on some level – they probably shared the same volume of self-loathing, she thought bitterly – and they would carry on being friends now because they could, because something like this, like last night, wouldn’t ruin that strange bond between them.

He hugged her a bit tighter and she hugged him back.

He had to interrupt it. “You’ve got great legs.”

It made her laugh.

“I can say that, right? I figure if you’re not going to kill be for sleeping with you then you can’t kill me for complimenting your legs.”

Natasha slapped his arm, playfully so it only half stung him, and stood up.

“Get out of here while I get dressed, Stark.”

“And then breakfast?” he asked hopefully. “I want pancakes. I think we should get pancakes. You love pancakes right? Everyone does. We’ll go get pancakes.”

She smiled even as she manhandled him out of the bathroom.

“Sure. Breakfast.”


End file.
